NTSB Advisory
National Transportation Safety Board
Washington, DC 20594

STATUS REPORT ON THE INVESTIGATION OF THE
AMTRAK ACCIDENT IN BOURBONNAIS, ILLINOIS
(Attributable to J.S. Dunn, Investigator-in-Charge)

March 19, 1999

As of today, six of the 10 investigative teams have been released and will return home. The signal, survival factors, highway factors, and human performance-highway teams will remain at the scene through the weekend.

A number of people have come forward who claim to have witnessed the accident. We have begun the interviewing process and will be determining the validity of their statements.

The witness statements will be analyzed at NTSB Headquarters in Washington, D.C., and compared with other evidence from the accident site. There is no way that the NTSB can characterize the witness statements as agreeing with one crash scenario or another until this analysis takes place.

Any characterization of witness statements up to this point would be one person's interpretation and not the position of the Safety Board.

The process of notifying families about the identification of their loved ones has begun.

NTSB Public Affairs: 202-314-6100